


Smoke, Lilies, and Jade

by nervoussis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Billy Hargrove Lives, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Person, Getting Back Together, Last words, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Past Child Abuse, Protective Steve Harrington, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27901909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervoussis/pseuds/nervoussis
Summary: Max nods. Stoic and slow and weighted, like she isn't ready to believe him just yet, and. Billy goes back to searching for his bucket because he can't find it within himself to blame her. Six years, one divorce, a distant mom and one dying father later, Billy.Doesn't want to be the one to let her down.So he goes back to fussing over the yard, remembering all that Susan taught him on those afternoons when rage itched like a fungus under his skin. Billy doesn't want to sign his life away, doesn't want to stay in Hawkins and sleep in the room with the lock on the wrong side of the door, but that's what family does.(or) Neil Hargrove is dying.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Comments: 59
Kudos: 99
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2020





	Smoke, Lilies, and Jade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greyspilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyspilot/gifts).



> How terrible it is to love something that death can touch.
> 
> The title of this work comes from the poem, "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade," by Richard Bruce Nugent

**Part One: Rome.**

When Billy was young and naïve and trapped in a house whose windows and doors were made of shadows, he believed that Neil Hargrove was like a spread of Californian land. Constant, rife with hills and valleys, as old and as unpredictable as the sea. He learned early on how to navigate the extreme highs and lows of his father's affection. How to crest the waves, falling in line with every rule and expectation, traveling the winding roads toward an unattainable _something,_ but. Never reaching the peak that seemed a distant point on a map not fit for travel. Through every beat down. Every long night, every semblance of terror, Billy always believed that the mighty do not fall. 

And sure, the almanacs at the library that proved otherwise. God and kings, heroes. The fall of Rome, the tyrant, too caught up in the swell of power to notice the cracks in his own foundation, but. 

Rome does not burn.

That's what Billy would say to himself, ice pack pressed to his ribs under the flickering light flooding through his open window. Billy, try as he might, is not a saint. Fathers aren't gods and heroes, and.

Rome does not burn.

\--

Billy doesn't waste time with the lock on the front door when the Camaro pulls to a thundering halt on Cherry Lane. Overgrown garden and cracked pavement aside, the horror house from his childhood, looks. The same as always. Just like Billy sees receding from behind his eyelids every night. He balances the crockpot on one arm and tries to. Find the courage. To just open the fucking door, and. 

See his father for the first time in six years.

Billy knows he isn't welcome here, not. Not after the door to his bedroom was blown off its hinges by soft kisses from a beautiful boy. He feels like a thief in the night as he puts one foot in front of the other, sneaking up the rickety porch steps and pushing against the door with his hip until the mahogany frame gives way. Billy stumbles into the living room. 

It's silent. A fucking ghost town, the bleary silver glimmer from the T.V. casting a searchlight over an actualized scene from Billy's nightmares. He swallows against the tension in his belly and toes the door shut, wincing at the way it calls attention to his arrival.

From somewhere in the house, Neil is snoring.

Billy can feel it in his bones. The vibrations planting his feet firmly in high school with nerves that tear his stomach to shit. Suddenly every single noise is too loud, too risky. The rattle of is breath in the night air, the tick of the clock on the wall. Billy lets the duffle bag burn a hole in his shoulder, clutching the crock pot to his chest and tip toeing toward the kitchen as if surrounded by land mines.

The movements are practiced, the kind of grace that only comes from living in fear. Billy thinks hysterically that you never really forget how to walk on eggshells.

He nearly keels over when he sees her.

In Neil's chair, taller than he remembers with a line of drool swirling down her freckled chin, Maxine blinks her eyes open. Billy freezes, a deer caught in the headlights of her confused stare.

"Billy?" She sits, the recliner creaking like a ship lost at sea. The metallic squeal slices through the air, so brash and sudden that Billy nearly drops his crock pot in terror. 

He peers around the room, listening with bated breath for the thunder of his father's footsteps in the hallway. After half a second, when the house settles thick with peace, he scowls. ""Jesus, kid do you know what time--why aren't you in bed?" He snaps.

Which.

Is strange because they _aren't_ teenagers anymore and Neil is.

He's--

"He's dying, Billy. Can hardly wipe his own ass." Max says, volume far too boisterous for what is allowed at this hour in their cage on Cherry Lane. She lights a cigarette, gripping a beer in one hand and tugging on the string of a lamp with the other. 

Suddenly the room is bathed in warm, golden light. The seafoam green walls of the den turn lavender, faded yellow couch painting a bargain brand sunset before the furniture burns away. Billy peers around the room again, drowning in the sensation that everything looks exactly the same. _Feels_ it too, with walls the color of bruises, and. 

"What's with the Betty Crocker routine?"

"Brought some soup, or. Something." Billy says. "Chili. Potato, I think? Might be both."

Max gestures to the pot with her cigarette, letting out a wet sounding blech because in the six years since Billy last saw her in person, she. Turned into a fucking truck driver, or some shit.

"Collins whip that up?" Max holds out her cigarette. An Offering, so.

Billy takes it, fumbling with the thing as if he didn't smoke through three packs on the journey home. He feels like a criminal. Feels the walls closing in. He puffs on the thing, the burn Neil gave him on the back of his neck for smoking in the house flares to life even after eight years. "Yeah, he. Fixed it before I left for work on Tuesday, I think."

Max snorts. "So you expect me to eat car chili?" 

"It was plugged in when I checked out of the hotel this morning."

"Gross."

"It was plugged in at _every stop--"_

"Yeah, and it crossed _four_ state lines." Max takes the cigarette back from him and sips on her beer. "Which means its been heated and reheated enough times that it's probably rife with salmonella."

Billy rolls his eyes. "So what?"

"Did you not pass freshman biology?" And she oozes around the feeling of knowing something Billy doesn't. "Salmonella is, like, deadly to humans. It attacks your immune system and depletes your water reserves so that--"

"Jesus, Max, you don't have to eat the shit alright?" Billy chuckles, digging around for his lighter. He sets the crockpot on the floor, the heel of his boot resting sweetly against the pretty round topper as if to prove his point. "Collins' a little heavy handed with the garlic salt anyhow."

"Just sayin'." The brat laments. "One spoonful of that goop and dad wont be the only invalid in the joint, alright? 'S _all_ I'm saying."

Max grins softly at the T.V., and.

The moment sort of hangs there. A ball and chain around Billy's neck, choking the smoke from his lungs until the word is so big there's no room left for anything else. 

_Dad._

He feels the tug of the past. A red string around his finger, yanking him toward bitterness and resentment. To Billy, Neil was always _sir._ Always the cement block around his ankle, the knife in his back, the burn on the side of his neck...

But Max, she. 

Had a different experience with the guy, he guesses, so. Billy puffs on his smoke for something to do. Leaning back in Susan's recliner and pretending to watch whatever local news channel runs stories about rock formations at two a.m. It's five minutes before either of them speak. Max opens the cooler next to her chair (because, truck driver), and hands him a beer.

"How's Santa Fe?"

Billy shrugs. "Same as always."

She nods, like. That's the answer she was looking for. "And Collins?"

Billy feels himself bristle, for some reason. It's not really a secret but _here._ In Neil's house, with the big bad wolf huffing and puffing three doors down, he. Sits forward. Takes his boot from the crock but and tries to remain casual. Easy.

"Max," Billy turns to her. Asses the bags under her eyes. "It's late. When's the last time you slept?"

"Dunno, what year is it?"

"Har-Har, shitbird." Billy tries to stop the spread of the grin across his face. He cracks the beer, and. Gulps it down. 

Max stares at him. "Only get a minute or so every now and then." 

"Bullshit," Billy says. "Never met a kid who sawed more logs."

Something in her eyes turns to stone. She crushes the butt of her cigarette and sits back. Crosses her legs. The metal squeals again with the shift of her weight and Billy, he. Tries to remember what year it is.

Max doesn't think it's funny. "Dad wakes up every couple hours screaming. Or crying, or. Asking for you." And she says it so casual, like. 

Like that's ever meant anything besides than bruises and broken ribs. Billy nods. 

Casual.

Easy. Tries to ignore the heat around That Word again as it chars him from the inside first. "What's he say?"

Max shrugs, the tension in her jaw the only hint that she recognizes the waters they're treading. She turns back to the T.V. "Dunno, he never tells me."

Billy nods, because. That's the Neil Hargrove he knows. Aloof and secretive, and. In so many ways exactly like his son. Billy lets his head bounce to and fro, reaches for another cigarette. "'S good to be, uh. _Home."_ and.

All at once Max's eyes snap and light on fire. "You don't have to lie, Billy."

"No, it. It's good--"

"I told you not to come," She says. "I knew this would be. Weird, or. Hard for you, and I know you don't like him. I know he hurt you, and--"

"We don't have to talk about this." Billy begs. _Pleads,_ because. Yeah. He stands, running a hand through his hair. "I really don't want to, uh. Not tonight, okay?"

Down the hall his father's breathing expands the four walls of the house and Billy can feel the movement trail down his neck like beads of water. His father's presence, the enormity of his energy, is ingrained into everything Billy is even if he works overtime to sever the ties. Even if Neil's. Even if he's.

Yeah.

It's happening and Billy's _here_ because it's just what family does, so.

Max nods. Once, as if to reassure him. 

Billy feels like he has to return the favor. He nods twice, a gentle response, before sitting heavy in the chair again. The second beer, when Max hands it to him, is colder than the first which. Makes him think she was looking forward to this. Like maybe it's been sitting on the lid since he called from Omaha.

Billy cracks the top and turns to watch the news. Feels Max settle into the matching recliner next to him, feels the tension drain from her shoulders bit by bit until Billy is sixteen again. After the fourth commercial break, he turns to find Max already staring. 

He lets the corner of his mouth tick up. An offering. "It's, uh. Good to see you, though. Missed you. Or whatever."

"Yeah," Max says simply. "Or whatever."

And the moment feels. Easy.

\--

He can't bring himself to sleep in the room that has a lock on the wrong side of the door. 

In the morning, with sunlight streaming light gray through the curtains in the living room, Max emerges from the kitchen in an _apron,_ for Christ-sake. The one he remembers Susan donning for special occasions. Easter, Hanukah, the works. Billy shifts in his chair and supposes this is a special occasion. The death of a beast.

Max bonks him on the head as she passes by. "There's fresh linens in the hall closet." She says, and.

Billy just. Stands. Takes his duffle bag to the bathroom across from. That Door. And tries to shower. Shave. Brush his teeth, but--

It weighs as much as bag of bricks, the lump in the back of his throat. The second he sees that the lock is in place the red string around his finger pulls him backward, through time and space and layers of healing to 1983. To nights with no food or water and the urge to tear the nails from his window and run.

Billy's in there. Parts of him, _all_ of him, strung together like paper bodies on a string. Sixteen and Seventeen and Eighteen. October thirty-first, and November eighth, and July fourth and November third. Staring at him. Breathing down his neck, until--

"Billy?" 

Max holds a lunch tray, like. The kind from school. A balanced meal and a pack of smokes for the big bad wolf. Her eyes are soft and gentle and _concerned,_ like she's the string holding him together, and. "Are you alright?"

Billy shifts the duffle bag on his shoulder. He nods. Tries for a smile but Max doesn't look convinced.

She glances between him and the room. The door. As if she's expecting one of them to run. "You don't have to go in, alright, you can." A shrug, the swell of her bottom lip worried to strands of tattered fabric on her face. "You can sleep on the couch, if. Like a beatnik or something, if that's easier."

Which.

Billy lets himself laugh. It's more of a wheeze. "No, I gotta. I can sleep in my room."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He tries for a smile. "'M gonna shower and then I'll help you. Whatever you need, squirt, alright?"

Max stares at him for a second longer, blue eyes searching, and then her concern takes a passenger seat to snark. "Yeah, well. Offer still stands. Everyone sleeps on someone's couch in Santa Fe," She teases, and then Max is moving. Carrying the tray down the hall and around the corner, to the infirmary.

Billy spares one more glance at the lock and the door and the. Hole in the wall from that night.

Of course Neil never got it fixed.

\--

When Billy was a child his father seemed like a stretch of Californian land. A mountain in the distance, the height of his love a peak that Billy could not reach. Before Billy's weakness started trickling through the cracks Neil Hargrove was kind. Different from the Monster on Cherry Lane that Billy had come to know.

He has fond memories. Blowing bubbles on Easter morning, building May Baskets for neighbors, catching butterflies in the field. The timbre of his father's laugh was like a gentle summer breeze. Neil's shadow was expansive, endless, in those days. More like a cloud passing over the sun and less like an afternoon of heavy rain. Billy remembers when the stretch of his father's hand brought relief from the heat of shining springs, and he.

Aches for those pieces lost to the wave of time.

When Billy was a child his father seemed as large as a glacier and now, with tubes stretching from him like phantom limbs against clean sheets, Neil Hargrove looks like a ceramic dish. Antique, a veteran of the movement of love between hands. Cracked and chipped and worn until Billy feels his stomach clench with nerves, and.

Weakness.

Where skin was once tanned and thick as leather it has turned papery with overuse of medicine. The chorded muscles of Neil's arms sit deflated, shrinking more and more with every prick of the needle, until.

The man looks hungry. 

Billy shifts beside the hideous orange chair. Next to the bed that has turned clinical. He isn't sure how this is supposed to work, the. Last words portion. Billy wrote and rewrote the phrases when he got the call from Max, the. _He's got a week left. Two tops,_ call. Worried over the phrasing until it no longer made sense against the stark white page.

Erased until holes wore through.

Billy looks past the missing patches of hair on his father's head.

Searches for eyes the color of steel. Hard and unforgiving, like pebbles at the bottom of a stream in winter. Shut, now, under the weight of pervasive sickness. Billy sits heavy in the chair and tries to reach for the hand the fed him. The hand that wrapped so many times like a vice around his throat. 

It's best to mimic what he's seen other people do, so.

Billy reaches for the arm that has sprouted tubes, tentacles, and wonders if that makes him the fisherman, the net around his father's sagging frame. Billy's hand falls limp in the space between them, because. "I did this."

The words feel strange when they flit through the air, like. Some sort of confession. Billy licks his lips and tries again. "Or, I wished for it. Lots of times, sure, but. On that night in particular."

Might as well let the cat out of the bag. Billy chances a look at his fathers face, scanning the medical tubes that hang from the stern line of Neil's mouth and doesn't know what he's expecting. It's not like his father can wrap a hand around him like he used to. Billy thinks hysterically that, like Easter mornings and May afternoons: there's nothing to be afraid of, anymore.

Billy never thought they'd end up here. "Max loves you, you know." 

He leans back in the chair, suddenly high on bravery.

"Don't know why. Kid saw enough. Heard enough, to put it together, and still." This isn't going as planned. "I don't think she really believes me. Most of the shit I tell her about. What happened. The truth. Can't really expect her to, you were. Her _dad,_ so. It's okay, though. I'm happy one of us got it. Something from you besides rocky terrain. Stones the size of fists."

And Billy isn't supposed to smoke in here, he knows, but. "My father is. _Dying._ And I can't bring myself to feel any sort of. Resolution, or peace, or." 

Billy sighs. "Relief." 

When he looks up again, toward the mountains, his father blinks cold blue eyes down at him. The color of sleet, of tin roofs. Billy freezes instantly in his place, cigarette hanging like a ball on a stick in front of. The cat.

Neil's eyes fall shut almost immediately, and.

Billy doesn't know what he was expecting.

\--

"Who takes care of the garden now that your mom's not around?" Billy asks, because. He's been dying to know. 

The yard isn't as vibrant as it used to be, when Susan was still around to keep up appearances. Billy thinks back to the countless afternoons spent lending a hand in the tiny garden bed by the fence. The one he and max painted ladybugs on, watering and weeding, planting while Susan prattled about technique.

She wasn't his mother. Susan could never be his mother, but. she tried.

In all the ways she knew how, just. Got caught up in the lie that the way things were, with Neil guzzling beer like they had arrived at the end of the world and picking a fight with a kid who couldn't punch back, was somehow normal.

Boys being boys, the. Morality of their house on Cherry Lane. Susan was good at that. Turning a blind eye, baking lasagna, and watering the roses. In many ways Susan reminds Billy of his mother, and in so many more she doesn't remind him of his mother at all. 

Either way they both left.

"I get out when I can," Max shrugs, the furry lapels of her coat bobbing like apples in a bucket. She lights a cigarette, the cherry bobbing with the rise and fall of her voice. "Steve comes by, couple times a week."

Billy straightens, a leaf from the lilac bush turning to lead in his hands.

"Steve Harrington?"

"Yeah, is that?" Max passes the cigarette over. "I thought you knew."

"I didn't." Billy turns back to pawing through the bush. Picking off the dead things, and. Shoving them into his pockets for lack of a better idea.

"Is that surprising to you, or something, that Steve's in Hawkins?" Max says, and. There's something in her voice. Glinting sharp under the wintery sky, like. A weather balloon caught in a storm.

When Billy moves back, hands full of dried lilac bulbs, his sister smirks.

"That freak you out?"

And Billy, he. Wants to say no. No no no, toss his hands toward the sky and pray for rain.

No, it's not surprising.

No, it doesn't freak him out, but. "Seems like something he'd do, I guess." Billy opens the pocket of his coat and shoves the dead things down-down-down, until they're buried under centimeters of worn brown leather. "You got a bucket around here, or what."

Her smirk just spreads like jam on toast. "Wednesday's Steve's in."

Billy brushes the dirt off on his jeans and looks at anything but Max. "Yeah, well I'm here now, dipshit,"

"For how long."

Billy's caught off guard. "What?"

"How long are you here?" She asks, and. It may have been six years since they last saw each other in person but Billy knows the kid like the back of his hand, or the beginning of a headache. The first three chords of _Material Girl,_ from that summer when the world nearly burned to the ground. 

Max, she. 

Feigns casual. Like the answer doesn't really mean anything. Like she'll be okay regardless, but. 

Billy finds his throat clicking as he swallows around nothing and everything all at once. "As long as you need me, squirt."

Max stamps out her cigarette with a grunt and mutters something that sounds a lot like _I'll always need you_. 

Billy swallows around everything.

Mountains and lakes and rivers settling like fists in his gut, until Max finally looks at him with her watery blue eyes. Another similarity.

She sighs, long and slow and _bratty._ "You'll stay?"

"Yes."

"As long as it takes?"

And Max is just like him. They're just like each other--it took. A long time, too long really, for that truth to settle in Billy's stomach and lose some of its edge, but. He can admit that now. Their similarities roll off the tongues of strangers, of pretty boys with soft mouths.

 _I refuse to believe you're step siblings, you're like. conjoined twins._ Shared blue. Shared aggression. Shared trauma--shared everything. 

Which is why Billy isn't all surprised when his mouth says, "As long as it takes."

Max nods. Stoic and slow and weighted, like she isn't ready to believe him just yet, and. Billy goes back to searching for his bucket because he can't find it within himself to blame her. Six years, one divorce, a distant mom and one dying father later, Billy.

Doesn't want to be the one to let her down.

So he goes back to fussing over the yard, remembering all that Susan taught him on those afternoons when rage itched like a fungus under his skin. Billy doesn't want to sign his life away, doesn't want to stay in Hawkins and sleep in the room with the lock on the wrong side of the door, but that's what family does.

And as Max kneels down in the soupy Earth next to him, bitching about his clumsy hands tearing the carrot sprouts to shit, its worth the weight of promised time to feel the grief settle a little more evenly across their shoulders.

**Part Two: Once, I Flew.**

They settle into a routine quicker than Billy expects.

The passage of time has done nothing to change the core of who they are; Max still reads comics in her bed well into the early hours of the morning, tucked safe and warm under the blue quilt Billy got her for Hanukah '85. Still hangs out with her rag tag group of weirdos. She complains about having to do the shopping, the laundry, the measuring of liquids and the medicine administration to their ailing father, so.

Billy picks up the slack and tries to help where he can. 

Hawkins only has one general store. Melvalds, on Park Street, and Billy curses Starcourt for fucking, _exploding_ on them like that. He holds his breath the first time he pushes the cart down the bread isle on Saturday morning. Someone will recognize him; Tommy H., or the guys from the basketball team, Billy's sure of it, and.

He isn't ready.

Not to face the past. The questions the; _hey Hargrove. Heard you're queer now._ He'll have to face it, if he's a man of his word, but. Billy shops with his sunglasses on like a douchebag and doesn't exhale until he's unloading the cart onto the register belt, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched up to his ears to avoid any awkward reunions. 

It's the only reason he doesn't notice her sooner, because if he had?

Billy woulda run for the hills.

Mrs. Byers doesn't say anything at first, she just. Smiles softly at him and gives a little wave when Billy finally straightens to ask for two packs of reds and a lighter. Billy Hargrove is a lot of things, but. Ill mannered is not one of them. Joyce makes quick work of typing all the prices into the register before. Reaching under the counter and pulling out three packs instead of two. 

Billy raises an eyebrow. Questioning, because. Mrs. Byers is a lot of things but stupid isn't one of them. 

"It's on the house," She says, that soft smile tugging at her lips again. Tugging Billy down by the ankle. "I'm guessing the second is for Max?" 

"Brat won't stop bumming off'a me, so." He starts piling the groceries into the reusable bags Max insisted he take with. She's got quite the collection; Billy's favorite is the one that says _Groceries and Shit_ in swirly calligraphy the color of sunlight.

Mrs. Byers sets his smokes on the counter and, just. 

Stares at him. 

To get a good look, Billy thinks, which mom's and grandma's always demand after so much time has passed. Billy stares back, even and level, before nodding to the Marlboro reds like they're a bag of leeches writhing on blue Formica.

"When'd she start smoking."

"Couple weeks after you left," Joyce says gently. 

"And she chose reds? That kid's a truck driver, I--" Billy starts when Mrs. Byers laughs, the weak tinkling of bells choking the air from his lungs. Billy reaches into his lapel pocket for, "How much do I owe you?"

"50.32," Joyce says softly and Billy wishes she'd knock it off. 

Softness should be reserved for people who deserve it. He digs around the folds of his wallet, separating the bills into numerical order before handing them across the way. Mrs. Byers takes them. Gives him his change, and. The moment sort of hangs there; Billy feels like he should say something. _Sorry,_ or _thank you for nursing me back to health after--_

"How're the boys?" That's what he lands on instead. 

"Oh, fine. Jonathan's up at NYU, Will lives in Indianapolis. Likes being close to home, I think."

Billy nods. The lump sits heavy in his throat again, the world going hazy with something he doesn't even have a name for. There's an endless, terrible moment where Joyce just stares at him, brown eyes molten like warm chocolate syrup, and Billy feels the urge to say something else, something.

More.

"Didn't you move to Atlanta, for a spell?" It's all Billy can manage in the moment. 

"Yeah, but. Hawkins is full of good people," She nods in his direction, like. Billy is an example of that. Like he proves her point. "Hard to find friends you can trust outside of. Here, and. What happened."

Billy nods again.

Feels like a bobblehead doll, neck nearly snapping in two when Mrs. Jacobson (who's still _alive_ somehow), sighs and urges him to _move it along now, Pretty Boy._

Billy must. Make a sound, or. Shake apart at the seams. Mrs. Byers, when he turns to stack his bags in the cart, looks like she knows something Billy doesn't.

He takes his receipt, and. "We should, uh. Catch up. While I'm in town." 

_I'm sorry. For everything, Mrs. Byers._

Billy doesn't say it. Can't force the words to forge meaning beyond a strangled, desperate look on his face that softens her brown eyes even further until they're just. Two muddy puddles drowning Billy in an inch of water.

"I'd like that." She says.

Simple. Easy.

Billy starts when Mrs. Jacobson clears her throat, and. Grips the cart with white-knuckled hands. Mrs. Byers waves at him like before, and Billy.

Feels glad to be home.

\--

Billy manages to go three days without seeing him.

Seventy two hours of dreading the moment brown would meet blue after six years, running errands and preparing meals, folding laundry, and. Dusting the cobwebs from the room with the lock on the wrong side of the door. Seventy two hours distracting himself from the possibility. Fifteen hours preparing himself for the feeling of being seventeen again, and.

Twenty minutes outside the door before pushing it open.

Billy thinks he should get this part over with. The initial shock of stepping inside and realizing that they left it exactly as it was that night, when. The world ended. Settles like a knit sweater over open wounds; everything is exactly the same, down to the crumped sheets on the floor and the pants Billy was wearing when the boy got on his knees and said, _I'll love you forever, you know._

Billy flits around the room and tries to swallow against the feeling that they were afraid of him, of catching his.

Sickness.

Everyone is. Always, perpetually, but. He chuckles dryly at the thought of Neil being afraid to burn his shit after threating to do it if Billy ever let his weakness bend toward the sun. 

He sits on the bed. Thirty minutes.

Takes his shoes off, and. Lays back against the mattress. Stares at the ceiling with its poster of Elvira looking down at him from on high. Billy curls up to the side of the bed closest to the wall, the one that.

_He._

Claimed as his. Billy buries his nose against sheets that smell like dust. Cigarette smoke, _Paco Rabanne,_ and underneath all that. 

Steve. 

\--

Billy jerks awake to the sound of the front door slamming open. 

Through the blanket that covers the window Billy can feel the nip of winter, sharp and jagged and chilled, dying light the shade of steel greeting his tired eyes with the distant tromp of footsteps.

Which can only mean it snowed.

In October.

Billy fell asleep in his childhood bed, wearing _jeans_ and nothing else and it _snowed_. He can see his breath in the darkening room.

Billy sits, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Someone is lumbering around the living room, a tool box clattering like it's full of loose nails and rusted hammers. He stands, sock feet providing a barrier between his toes and the hard oak floorboards that Billy never missed.

He thinks about tossing on a hoodie, or. The dusty denim jacket that still hangs in its place on the wall. Through the door, with its lock and key and exposed secrets, Billy hears muffled swearing. The sound of Bob the Builder trying to lower the hatch to the attic. He settles for the satin robe at the back of his closet.

The pretty green one, that reminds him of the sea, and. Opens the door to Steve Harrington hopping like a bunny rabbit to grab the string to the attic hatch. 

With his back turned, Harrington doesn't see him at first but Billy would know the line of those shoulders anywhere. 

He leans against the door frame, feeling buck ass naked in comparison to Steve. With his heavy flannel coat and thick leather gloves and expensive snow boots which have, _of course,_ tracked clumps of white _shit_ all through the house. Billy follows the line of sludge with his eyes, sighing when it disappears around the corner into the living room. 

"Billy?"

He turns back around to. That _look,_ the one he got so comfortable seeing on a lovers face that he grew to expect it from everyone who came after. Billy thinks, as Harrington drops his tool box and fucking. Reaches out for him, that. No one will ever look at him the way Steve does.

Billy flinches back. Away, tugging the strings of the robe close to his body, to. Hide the skin that Steve's eyes have lit on fire.

"Hey," He says simply. 

Which. Isn't at _all_ what Billy wants to say because he's thought about this. A million times, with his arms around another man. The reunion, the _I never stopped loving you_ and the peppering of gentle kisses that always ends with _I should've taken you with me._

Steve takes a step back. _Away,_ his boots squeaking against hardwood and Billy's _I love you, come with me,_ dies in his throat.

Harrington offers a smile. Tight, controlled, and.

Points a gloved finger at Billy's chest. "What're you wearing?"

Billy clenches the robe tighter, jaw following suit. "It's a robe."

"It's _silk."_

"I like it."

"It's _snowing,"_ Steve chuckles, stepping two inches closer and Billy feels like. He's pinned against the wall. "I didn't know you'd be home."

Billy snorts, turning to pad down the hallway. "The fuck else would I be, hanging out with all my friends?"

His socks are wet now, but. It hardly matters because Steve follows him. Two feet behind but so, so close.

"Joyce said you bought three packs of reds for Max."

Billy puts the kettle on, because.

Snow.

He shrugs. "Guess she grew up while I was off in therapy."

"Yeah. Guess so."

Billy preoccupies himself with cleaning their already spotless kitchen. Wetting a rag and running it over the counters for hope of looking at anything other than Steve Harrington. It's impossible, when the guy seems to be wherever Billy is moving next.

Like he can't stay away. 

Steve's hands are in his pockets, balled into fists. Billy thinks they should be planting against his sides like flower bulbs in fresh soil, given their history, but those hands just accept the mug of instant coffee Billy shoves into them. 

Pink lips closing around the mouth of the cup, and.

"'S good," Steve says. He smiles again. Tight lipped and tense. Billy wants to smooth it away with his mouth. 

He settles instead for gulping down his coffee, wincing at the burn in his throat.

Steve watches him for. A terrible, endless moment. Finally, he sighs. "I think the boiler's out again."

"That happen a lot?" Billy hates to think of it. Max here, alone, the heat crapping out whenever its needed most.

Steve shrugs. "Old house."

Billy drains the last of his coffee and tosses the mug into the sink. "I have some money set aside." He declares, and.

A smile tugs at the corners of Steve's eyes.

A genuine one, the bridge of his nose wrinkling like it does when he finds something really funny. "Thank you for sharing."

"I'll get someone to put in a new boiler." Billy spits, like. Keep up.

"Max'd kill both of us for thinking she needs our help."

"She does." Billy chooses to ignore, the. _Our._ Our help.

"Hey, I'm not arguing." Steve splays his hands and opens the fridge, coming away with a beer. "You think I'm _good_ at playing groundskeeper?"

Billy thinks about the garden. The way the rain gutters were clean when he checked, the lawn mowed, the leaky roof patched. The way Max confidently said _Wednesday's Steve's in._ He smirks. "Worried I might put you out of a job, Harrington?"

And.

Billy thought it could be funny, like. A joke or something. To break the ice, but.

Steve's eyes close like a steel door. "I do it because I care about your sister."

"Hey, I--"

"She doesn't pay me and I don't expect her to, Jesus Billy, do you really think--"

Billy steps closer. 

An inch or two, just to show he didn't mean anything by it. Steve quiets instantly, hyper aware of Billy in the space next to him. He takes a few deep breaths, the can of beer draining like water from a sink down his throat before:

"It's been a rough couple of years, without." _You._ Steve's eyes say. "Max doesn't need shit. Not from anyone, she's like you that way, but. Doesn't mean I can't be there for her."

Billy tracks the movement of Steve's throat, and. Offers a smile. 

Steve. shakes his head, grin spreading slow and easy over his face with the toss of his can into the garbage bin. "Sounds like Max. Besides. Kid works part time at the arcade, for Christ-sake. She couldn't afford me."

Billy laughs. Really, cackles like a hyena at that, and.

Steve's cheeks turn rosy with the pleasure of it. They stand there for a moment, grinning at each other like a couple of old friends who have arrived at the end of a journey. Steve starts when Billy claps his hands together, silk robe pulling taught over his chest with the shift of muscle. 

"Alright, let's get this boiler shit figured out. Think I'm getting blue balls."

Steve, when he smiles again, does it for real.

\--

Billy doesn't put two and two together until a week after his arrival in Hawkins, which. 

Doesn't seem like that long to people with functioning self awareness and, like. Eyes and shit. But for Billy, it feels like a lifetime. Despite the way she kicks her feet up and seems to enjoy her newfound free-time, Max bitches constantly about the workload; _thirty hours this week at the arcade, and I have to administer the shot before the nurse comes for chemo on Wednesday and--_

Billy thinks she'll bitch less if he offers to help. 

Looking back, he doesn't know why he thought that. Brat can't accept help if it's thrust into her hands with a _for free_ sign taped to its forehead. She pouts when he pushes her away from the sink after dinner, scowls when he tidies the living room and does the laundry so Neil has fresh linens because the weight of the world has been hers to carry for the last six months. Max has trouble sacrificing control. Another similarity between them and Billy, he. Wants to help.

If only for some goddamn peace and quiet so he plays nurse maid.

The only thing he leaves for the Brat is feeding Neil. And changing his bed pan, and just. Anything that involves being in the room with him for longer than five minutes at a time. All of which Billy spends with his head down. 

So, he helps to lighten her load.

Max isn't happy about it at first. Threatens to send him back to New Mexico and _that failing relationship of yours,_ if he doesn't sit down and _take a break,_ but.

That's the thing. 

Billy's had his break, from. Hawkins and family, and. 

Neil.

So he tells her to fuck off and grins to himself when she leaves the house every night for a couple hours to see her nerdy friends. Stomping through the house in a flurry of pencil skirts and kitten heels he's seen Susan wear once or twice. For date night, which. 

Means one of two things. Max is either shacking up with the Sinclair kid or she's got sidepiece. 

He sits up on Tuesday night to ask about it, reading casually under a lamp when she shoulders in sometime after three. Max is tipsy, and. Giggling. Pulling someone behind her and stumbling past the shoe rack while the person, the.

_Girl._

Gently pushes his sister up against the wall, and. 

He tries to make himself invisible. Really, tries to fold himself in half against Susan's recliner without making any noise before either of them realize they've got an audience. He picks the book up from where it fell against his stomach and tries not to call attention to. The girl. Or panic, or.

 _Vomit_ when Max hums softly in the back of her throat and the _girl_ starts sucking a hole in Max's neck like some kinda small town vampire. 

Billy pretends to be asleep. 

It doesn't work. "Billy, what the fuck?" 

He doesn't think he'll ever be used to the volume of Max's voice this late at night when it reverberates off the lavender and seafoam green backdrop of their little comedy turned soap opera. Billy opens his eyes, and. Is met with an angry red head and her _girl._

He stretches dramatically anyway. "Oh hey, when'd you get in?" 

Max doesn't buy it for a second. Doesn't buy the yawn or the hand scrubbing tricky sleep from Billy's eyes. Max's friend, the _girl,_ is half hidden behind a tangle of red waves, but he'd know her anywhere. 

El sort of. Waves at him. Pink cheeked and shy, which Billy expects. "Hi." She says gently.

"Hi," Billy laments.

And it's awkward. 

They stand there, the three of them. Billy scratching his neck and Max staring him down while El works out the tension between the two. After thirty seconds she makes some bullshit excuse about having to get up early, planting a gentle kiss on Max's neck right over the. _Hole_ she left.

"Woah, hey you don't uh." He stands, the recliner squealing like a fucking pig in the tense silence around them. "You can stay, if you want. I. If Max wants, I don't."

And Billy withers under the chill of blue eyes.

His mouth won't stop moving. "I'm queer, I. Always have been so, I don't--"

"Billy."

"Mind. And I'm making pancakes in the morning. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I think she saw the ingredients in the pantry so it's not like it fucking--"

_"Bills."_

He shuts up. 

El looks like she could laugh. So she does, loud and boisterous which isn't how he remembers her. The sound seems to thaw Maxine from the feet up, her blue eyes finally _finally_ tearing away from him to lock on her friend, her. Girl.

"Why don't you go warm up, baby."

El kisses her forehead and, after a soft, "Don't be long. Good to have you back, Billy," disappears down the hall.

Instantly Billy realizes he's been left alone with a shark.

Max whirls on him. "What the _hell_ was that?"

"What was that? What was--" Billy jabs his chin in the direction of the bathroom, where the shower has been turned on. _"T_ _hat?"_

 _"I'm queer too,_ why the fuck would you say that, Billy?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't want you to feel weird, or. Her to feel weird." He splays his hands as if to prove it, to show her. "It can be hard. It was, for me, and I just. When you love someone--"

"We aren't in love."

And that. 

Throws Billy for a loop. He thinks it over, the way El was staring at Max's stupid face like she broke down the sun and created all the stars in the sky. The way Max pulled her close and said _go get warm, baby,_ ever the caretaker.

Billy smirks because it's a load of shit, but. Then he thinks about how it was for him, at first. When another pair of brown eyes turned his life on its head. Billy sits heavy in the chair and tosses his feet up, shocked when his boots don't make the thing howl.

He lights a cigarette, taking a puff and holding the thing out to Max.

An offering.

After half a second she snatches it from him and sits in Neil's chair, pencil skirt making her collapse awkwardly so she's laying like a stiff board across the thing. Max glares at him through wet eyelashes, a side effect of Hawkins in winter, and sighs.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like," Max shifts around, trying to get comfortable. "Like you know something I don't." Eventually she stands and pulls the thing off, revealing a pair of sweats rolled up to her knees. 

Max sits heavy in the chair again, elbows to thighs like a truck driver as she puffs on the cigarette, and. Hands it over.

Billy can tell.

By the tense line of her shoulders. Her nervous glances down the hall to where El is singing softly through the bathroom door.

They aren't in love but they're on the way.

"Me?" Billy takes the cigarette and waggles his tongue, earning him a soft smile. "I never knew a single thing in my life."

\--

"Did _you_ know Max is queer?"

Steve bangs his head on a low hanging branch, snow falling to the ground as he leans back to rub his skull.

When he looks at Billy his face is pinched with concern. "That kinda thing bother you?"

"Why would it bother me?"

"No reason," Steve goes back to snipping dead shit from the bushes, head cocked to the side, "Only, you tossed the door open and stomped out here like you just found out someone else won prom queen." 

Billy tries to kick him but ends up, sort of. Swaying awkwardly from side to side when Steve dodges him nice and easy.

He doesn't know how it happened, this. 

_Friendly bullshit_ with Steve Harrington that snuck up on him the last few days. Every time Billy's home alone the guy shows up unannounced, to. Clean the drains or put down ice melt or shovel snow into neat, even piles up by the window where Billy definitely _doesn't_ stand watching Steve's muscles strain under the force of the shovel. He works in thermal shirts and that's _it,_ like a red blooded American asshole, and.

They have a report. 

Billy will say something and Steve'll crack a joke and they'll laugh.

Like old times, and. It's easy for Billy to forget that there's someone in New Mexico who wants to share his bed. Collins reminds Billy of his mother; soft and needy and nurturing. Buying clothes Billy will never wear and cooking chili for the drive across country, but.

Billy doesn't love him and they aren't together even though he wishes they could be, sometimes. Because Collins is safe. He wears jackets in the winter and folds his socks into even piles, but he doesn't make Billy laugh.

 _Really_ laugh, like some people do.

Billy shoves his hands in his pockets and, studies the ice sickles that cling to the side of the house. "So. You know about our resident lesbians or not, Harrington." 

He doesn't see so much as _feel_ the shrug in the air around them. 

"Isn't much to know," _thwack-thwack-thwack_ go the garden sheers. In time with Billy's heart. "Max split with Lucas a couple years ago and--"

"Jesus, Steve, I _know_ that part." Billy tries not to bristle. "She's my sister."

"And you didn't know about them?"

"Fuck, it's not." He says to the garden gnome across the way. "Not something you really broadcast unless you're ready, you know?"

"Yeah, I." Steve says softly. When Billy finally looks at him, he's fiddling with the sleeves of his thermal. "I know what happens when you out someone who isn't."

It hangs between them.

Everything and nothing and that night, with. The slide of Steve's tongue around him, swallowing every piece of him, and the sound of the lock sliding out of place. The door hitting the wall and Billy hitting the floor.

And he. Taps Steve's chest. Just once, as if to prove a point.

"Get your coat on, pretty boy, you'll catch your death out here." He doesn't stick around to see the impact so there's no reason he'd know.

The way Steve holds his hand over his heart and stares behind him well after the moment has passed.

\--

Neil doesn't talk, anymore, which. Billy finds to be hilarious seeing as how he never stopped talking Billy's entire life. 

Respect and responsibility. Over and over again like a broken record kicking up dust in an empty room. 

Two weeks turn into three. 

Neil isn't getting better, but. He isn't getting worse either. Billy hasn't made another attempt at Last Words since that first day, when Neil resurfaced and stared at him with something almost like. Recognition, or. 

Remorse.

He knows it's important not to expect anything from his father during the last few weeks of his life, but. Billy still finds himself pacing outside the infirmary door late at night, long after the town has settled stoic and sleepy under a blanket of darkness as if to. 

Make something happen. 

Neil won't apologize. _Can't_ apologize, he's too weak, but.

Billy tries not to get his hopes up anyway. 

\--

On Friday Max is called into work before the sun rises. All, _I repair the machines,_ and their cash cow bit the dust over night. 

She opens Billy's door just after five, looking like she's prepared to wake him up only to find him five sets in on leg day. "Can you handle him?" She asks, and.

Billy's here to help lighten the load, after all.

Max takes the Camaro because it snowed again last night and of _course_ the station wagon doesn't have winter tires yet. The car pulls out of the driveway and Billy wastes the first hour milling around the house; alphabetizing the bookshelves, and. Dusting behind the T.V. because Max always seems to forget. Once the sun rises he sets in on breakfast, counting out pills, and washing his hands once or twice to reduce the risk of infection when he administers the needle.

By the time the clock strikes eight he's staring at the door to the infirmary, lunch tray clutched tightly in his fist.

This is usually where Max takes over. Breakfast and then the wash down. Clean linens as Neil's skin dries. Billy feels like he should knock, or. Announce his presence so the man isn't caught off guard by someone other than Max barging in with his first meal of the day.

Billy wasn't allowed in his father's room even as a child, so he feels the prick of sweat on his skin. Icy cold despite the vent that lies ahead. 

He's been in this room before.

Just yesterday, even, to hold the tubes while Max helped Neil adjust himself on the bedspread, but. Every time feels like the first. Like he's meeting his father all over again, in the most inconvenient of places. Billy raises his fist to knock and then lets it fall to his side again.

He's been in this room before. Just yesterday, and even doped up on his meds Billy could feel the words.

Hanging unspoken in the air between them.

Neil staring at him like he recognized Billy or even felt bad for the way things had happened, and. Billy retreats down the hallway to the kitchen because he's here to lighten Max's load but he can't do it alone. 

This part, the.

Caretaking.

The phone is icy cold in his palm when Billy leads the list of numbers on the wall and picks the one that will bring deliverance. 

**Part Three: Satellite.**

Steve greets Neil Hargrove as if they see each other everyday, like. They're old friends meeting up at the bar. He takes the tray from Billy's clenched hands and muscles the door open with his hip, brown eyes gentle and understanding as they hold Billy's all the way through the frame. 

Neil's awake and, just.

Smiles.

When Steve whoops and says, "Look who's up causing trouble." He sets the tray down on the bedside table and flops down in the chair next to bed, fiddling with the knobs on the radio until _Pickler & Ben _filters through the silence with all the grace of a double edged sword. Neil hasn't stopped looking at Billy. 

Taking in the nervous gait as he fiddles with the hem of his sweater. Billy swallows around everything, again, and winces when Neil grabs Steve's arm and just. Raises his eyebrows in a question, like. _The fuck is that guy,_ all the while keeping those steely blues on the bob of Billy's throat.

Steve glances over his shoulder, hand stilling on the knob, and says, "Him? That's Billy."

And Neil, he. Looks like he might throw up. His knuckles turn white against Steve's arm. Neil shakes his head, and then. Reaches his hand out through the oceans of time between them. He reaches for Billy, as if he could ever.

As if he expects Billy to.

An outstretched hand from Neil hasn't meant anything but pain for as long as Billy can remember. Nothing other, nothing else, just blood and broken bones and shame as hot as the sun. Steve leans back in the chair and glances between the two. Neil's hand and Billy's knees knocking like old chicken bones as he shakes his head before.

Turning around.

Running away.

"Billy--" Steve says, but the bathroom door slams shut and then Billy is meeting his breakfast for a second time. Shaking like a leaf on his knees, tile cool against his skin through denim the color of his father's eyes.

Someone's knocking on the door, and then. 

Banging.

When Billy doesn't answer. He puts his head against the cool ceramic of the toilet lid, and. "Door's unlocked, Steve." Harrington waits half a second and then he's crouching in all the open spaces, pushing into Billy's space without ever touching him. Billy rolls his head to the side, watching Steve worry his bottom lip to shreds.

"You didn't have to go in there with me," He says, and. Sure.

"We're past that now."

"I'm just saying." Harrington sits, folding himself up in the doorway and leaning against the frame. A barrier protecting Billy from the rest of the world. "I can't imagine how hard this must be for you--"

"What was that?"

Steve blinks at him. 

"In there," Billy jerks his head toward Neil's room, toward. The infirmary. "With the radio and the fucking. _Smile_ you pulled outta him just by walking through the door, what."

Billy thinks back to all the times he tried to get a reaction from his father.

How he craved smiles and kind words at first and then. Anything Neil would give him to prove that Billy existed. He swallows thickly, holding Steve's eyes as they go wrinkly around the edges. "What was that."

Harrington swipes his bottom lip with his tongue, shrugging. "He's dying."

And.

"That doesn't mean anything," Billy hears himself say, only. It does.

"Sure it does," Steve echoes. He leans forward, impossibly closer, like he's holding himself back from. Touching. "Six years you were gone, after. One night. _That_ night and then. Max called and here you are."

Billy feels himself bristle. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything." Harrington snaps. He frowns again, fingers tugging at his hair like they do when. He's angry. "I. Hate your father."

Billy flinches when Steve chuckles, low and rough, before lifting his eyes toward the ceiling, like.

The answer might be written there in white paint.

"I hate the tilt to his mouth when he refuses to eat lunch and Max has to hold him down. Hate when he scoffs and the medicine and the work she puts in to make sure he's not festering in his own shit for longer than he has to, but." 

Steve holds his eyes.

Level, easy. "I hate that he took you away."

And Billy's thought about this. A million times, wrapped up in the sheets of different beds throughout the years. Steve understanding, or. Proving that it wasn't wrong for Billy to leave. Neil drove him out, it wasn't safe, and.

The first sob feels like it cracks his ribs.

Steve blinks, startled at first and then he offers a gentle, sweet smile. Hand coming up to grip the back of Billy's neck. The second brings a fingertip over his cheekbone, under his eye, where Harrington wipes at the tears and says, "It's not your fault Billy." Which somehow brings the world to a sudden end.

Billy feels himself being pulled forward, the red string around his finger coiling itself around Steve's shoulders until.

Billy's crying into a neck that smells like home. And the passage of time, and. 

Love the color of the sea.

**Epilogue: When You Build Your House, Call Me Home.**

Two ties lay propped against the threadbare quilt in Max's room. Green and blue, two paths. 

Billy lifts the first to his throat and peers at himself in the mirror. Thinner, now, since Neil passed, but.

Healthier, too. 

Happier.

Three weeks turned into six months in the blink of an eye. 

A month for every year he was gone. A span of thirty days and then thirty more, stretching down a long hallway into a future where Billy couldn't see himself leaving the sleepy town and its people, his friends, in favor of something else. 

El and Max. Mrs. Byers and Hop. And. Steve.

Billy lifts the second tie, squinting into the mirror and cocking his head as the door slides open. He expects Max, dressed in the tailored suit they had made special, but. Steve appears behind him instead. Hair styled perfectly.

Billy frowns. "I can't decide."

Steve nods, like. Picking his tie for a funeral is a life altering decision.

Billy tosses the blue one away and clutches the green again. "It's just. How is everything Max picked out so fucking. _Stupid,_ why does it make me look like I'm on my way to first communion or something?"

"You're Jewish."

"Fuck off," Billy says, but. He sets to work tying the knot, just like.

Neil.

Taught him. And the bunny rounds the corner into his burrow--

"Fuck." Billy hisses, yanking the satin away quick enough to burn. His fingers are shaking when he tries again, lump sharp and hostile in the back of his throat. Steve comes in close behind him.

"Let me," He says, and then Billy's being rearranged, to. His rightful place in front of Steve Harrington.

He's fighting a grin as Steve takes the second one, the blue, and begins the process of folding it around Billy's throat. "You have no sense of color coordination," Steve mutters, eyebrows drawn together in a grimace when Billy moves to tickle his armpit. 

"Don't be a _brat,"_ Steve laments. Then; "Just because it's funeral day, don't think I won't lay you flat, heartbreaker."

And then Billy's laughing, choking on tears, but.

Content.

From a breath away Billy notices, all over again, the way six years has changed nothing and everything about the curves and valleys of Steve's profile. That face Billy would recognize anywhere, those eyes that will carry him from the end of this life and into the next. 

He lifts a hand, fingers brushing the gentle line that's appeared at the corner of Steve's mouth. Taking in, again, how beautiful he is.

Harrington frowns, knocking Billy's hand away with his lips. "Stop it."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're doing a whole lot of something and you know it," Steve quips. He pulls the knot inward, blue stain synching against Billy's Adams apple but not tight. Not restrictive. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you have to make up for six years of torment." Steve adjusts the tie once more before nodding with satisfaction. Billy loosens the knot with two fingers, smirking when Steve tightens it again with a sigh.

"Such a brat."

"Just like pulling your pigtails, baby." Billy runs back to the mirror, fussing with his hair as tears prick hot behind his eyelids. "Everyone around me's getting lost to the wave of time. Gotta appreciate what we have while we have it, right?"

Steve watches him for a moment, eyes serious. "I'm not leaving you."

"I know--"

"Not for anything." Steve offers. He pushes in close, head tucked against the swell of Billy's shoulder. Harrington wraps his arms around Billy's waist in like, a.

Prom hug.

And then they're swaying. Steve peppers lingering kisses up the length of Billy's throat, nipping at his jaw until Billy worms around to kiss him proper. Chaste and quick, pulling back so he doesn't start crying again, which.

Billy does a lot these days. His clients would have a fucking field day with him.

Steve only holds him tighter, closer. A kiss under each of Billy's ears, and then. "You can do this."

"Can I?"

"You can." Harrington says firmly. Gently, holding on impossibly tighter to Billy's waist. "And I'll be right there to hold your hand."

Billy feels tears burn down his throat again. 

Steve, he. Has done a lot of comforting in the last six months since that night on the bathroom floor. Holding Billy and telling him it's okay, he's _okay,_ and it's normal to cry every once in a while. Billy still bites against the burn anyway, grimacing when a few tears escape and Steve cleans them up with his mouth.

Someone's knocking at the door.

Billy wipes frantically at his cheeks, stilling when Steve grabs his wrists and kisses each palm. 

Billy smirks. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Being so fucking soft, like." He pulls away gently, tugging his jacket in place. "You gotta make up for lost time."

Steve grins at him, eyelashes catching the early march sunlight as it filters through the open window. "We got nothing but time, kid."

And as they open the door, Billy thinks what a wonderful thing to have.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays!


End file.
